Zutara Week 2011
by Toby Addison
Summary: I only plan on writing for days 1 and 4, although that may change. I also don't know what I'm doing for Day 7, so you may get something for that.
1. Day 1  Mask

**Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender**

**Title: Zutara Week 2011, Day 1: Mask**

**Parings/Ships: Zutara, brief mention of Sukka**

**Setting: Three years after the war. The South Pole.**

_Katara._

"Who… who are you?"

_Katara._

"Please, you've been visiting me in my dreams for the past three days. Can't you at least show me your face?"

_Katara._

Suddenly a face appeared in the darkness. Well, it was a face, and yet… not a face. Was it a monster or a mask? The grey-blue color of the skin was certainly not human, and neither were the white swirls that looked like eyebrows and a mustache or the two small tusks protruding from the upper jaw. It had to be a mask, because Katara had never heard of or seen a creature that looked like this.

_Remember me?_

Katara searched her memory for even a fragment of this masked face, but nothing even remotely useful came up for some time. And finally, a name.

"You're the Blue Spirit."

_In a way._

Katara couldn't tell, but she thought that whoever it was behind the mask was smiling. At his own personal joke, she supposed. But she still didn't know who the man was! Doing the only thing she could think of, Katara reached up to try and pry the mask off with her fingers, but a pale-skinned hand appeared from nowhere and grabbed her wrist, pushing it down and away.

_You will know who I am when it is time._

Katara woke up suddenly from her dream. She was lying in the tent she still shared with Sokka and their father – she would not move unless she married, and since the only person in the tribe close to her age was Sokka, so that would not be happening anytime soon. A sudden chill rolled through the dark-skinned teenager's body, and Katara realized that in her sleep she had managed to roll away from Sokka and Hakoda. She sighed heavily. This wouldn't happen if she slept in the middle, but the moment they had arrived back at the Southern Water Tribe, Sokka had claimed the spot. Sokka, who was to be married to Suki in mere weeks and yet somehow got away with not being on Kyoshi Island.

As the girl stretched and prepared to move back over to the warmth of her family, she suddenly had the urge to go outside for a walk. She couldn't explain why, but something was compelling her to don her heaviest coat and walk around the camp in the freezing temperatures and occasional light snowflakes. She shrugged mentally. Her instincts had never done her wrong, and this seemed like any other time. She might as well.

Moments later, the young bender was wrapped up in her warmest and thickest coat, with soft Otter-Penguin feathers as a lining and a hood that almost covered her face. As she walked around various tents and low-burning fires, the air swirling around sharply and smarting her face, Katara began to question her judgment. Why had she wanted to come out here in the first place? What was the point? Beyond the camp, there was nothing but a flat expanse of snow dotted with the occasional Otter-Penguin and Polar Sea Lion colonies. In the camp, there was no one screaming for help with an injury or sickness, so it couldn't have been a medical instinct.

Feeling the call of the ocean, she traced back her steps and began the short march to the water. There she felt the familiar tug at her gut from the slow rolling waves and had the urge to bend. She somehow managed to take off her thick boots and wade up to her ankles, the freezing water lapping at the hem of her coat. The girl lifted her hands and put herself into position, letting the energy flow through her body as the waves started to churn. A whirlpool was beginning to form, the water responding more to her heart than her mind. Katara's thoughts were elsewhere, focusing on the dream she had only just woken up to.

Again Katara searched her mind for any fragment of a memory of that mask. But still there was only the name. The Blue Spirit. It must've been during the war. All of her memories from that time were only a blur, even the brief whirlwind romance she and Aang had afterward. If only there was a way to clear those memories and search specifically for what she were looking for. And then suddenly, from the darkness:

_Katara._

She whipped around at the sound of the voice. At first there was nothing, only the wide expanses of snow and ice, with her camp in the distance. The only sound reaching her ears was the water lapping at her ankles, her whirlpool having collapsed. She heard movement to her left and looked – nothing. Then a movement to her right – nothing. Katara was about to give it all up and decide it was just her nightmare leaking into the real world when the voice came again.

"Hello, Katara." Katara tried to yelp, but something muffled it. Someone was behind her, and that someone had one hand tightly clasped across her mouth and the other holding her wrists together behind her back. Said hands were coarse, firm, and… slightly familiar. They were like the mask, in her mind but unable to be found. Except she didn't have a name to accompany these.

But whoever this stranger was, Katara couldn't bring herself to struggle. She knew she should be scared, but… she wasn't. There was something calming about him. Whoever the guy was didn't say a word after "hello", and then he let go. His hands moved to her face, where he gently tilted her head back until she was looking into his eyes. Or what should've been his eyes.

It was the mask. The Blue Spirit.

Biting back an urge to scream, which would result in waking her entire camp, Katara turned so she was facing the man and stumbled several steps backwards. Now she could see him clearly, and more than just the masked face. A ruffled mop of black hair was donned on top of his head, and the clothing looked suspiciously like Fire Nation garb. Fancy clothes, at that, albeit severely wrinkled, dirty, and a bit torn.

"Who are you?" she whispered finally, after staring at him for what seemed like hours. Neither of them had moved, and Katara could feel the frostbite beginning to creep up on her toes from taking off her boots.

"Don't you know?" A smirk accompanied this comment, told by the tone of his voice. And Katara knew that she _should_ know. Why, she could not say.

"You're the Blue Spirit." He nodded ever so slightly. "But who _is_ the Blue Spirit? You're not from the Spirit World, I can tell."

And then all in one swift moment, the young man quickly overtook the distance between them, lifted his mask to show only his mouth, and kissed her on the lips.

Several thoughts passed through Katara's mind as this happened. After "Holy Avatar, who in the Spirit World is this?" came "How did he move that fast?" and "Wait, why am I kissing him _back?_" So then she pulled away from him, pushing back on his shoulders with her hands and taking a few more steps back. But she had a few tricks of her own. While stepping away, she hooked a finger under his mask and ripped it off.

For the second time in just as many minutes, Katara fought back an urge to scream. Because, standing in front of her was…

"Zuko."

"Took a while for you to guess, Princess." There he was, looking all smug and proper and _very_ proud of himself. Katara was disgusted. Zuko was 19, running his own freaking _nation_, and yet somehow had managed to slip away, _invade her dreams_, and then just randomly appear and _kiss her?_ She couldn't say she hadn't enjoyed it, but what in the Spirit World was he doing?

"I know what you're thinking," Zuko said, taking a cautious step towards her.

Katara glared back at him. "Actually, you probably don't."

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really?" He closed his eyes to concentrate for a few moments, and then spoke again, in a falsetto mimic of Katara's voice. "This guy is a bigger idiot than I thought. What does he think he can do, trick me into some false sense of – wait. Is he really – he is. This guy is freaking _reading my mind_. Maybe I should just stop – but I can't –" Zuko stopped, another smirk on his face as Katara gasped and stepped back even more.

"How can you… how do…" she was at a loss for words. So, not only was he skipping out on his duty as Fire Lord to come unannounced to the South Pole, now he could read minds? The stupid… no, she had to control herself. He could read minds, so any negative comments about him couldn't be hidden.

"Aang." Zuko's smile was gone, meaning he had caught her brief comment. "Aang taught me. It was something he learned from one of his visits to the Spirit World, and apparently it's not reserved to the Avatar. I think he can do it without thinking, but I have to really concentrate. Although right now, I do happen to know that you think this whole thing makes me –" He was interrupted by a hard slap to across his face. Katara then immediately crossed her arms over her chest, turned around, and started to march off.

"Katara, wait!" Zuko chased after her until they were side by side, and then matched her stride. "Look, Katara, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to surprise you like this. I just wanted to –"

Then Katara suddenly stopped in her tracks and whipped around to face Zuko. "Oh, you didn't _mean_ to? Just like you didn't mean to come invade my dreams for three days straight so that I thought I was going insane? Or like you didn't mean to come and _kiss_ me without saying a word? And can I ask you a question, Zuko? Where is your wife during all of this? That Mai girl? What does she –"

"Katara!"

"WHAT?"

Zuko grabbed Katara's shoulders with so much force he almost knocked her down. "Mai and I were never married. We aren't even together anymore! That's why I came down here. The whole time I was with Mai, I couldn't stop thinking of _you_. But _I_ thought you were still with Aang. That's why I didn't come here until after I visited him and found out. But since I knew I could never see you alone if I came with the whole royal shebang, I came alone. Told my ambassadors I was visiting the Avatar again and wanted to go alone. Somebody's in charge up there right now, so I'm _not_ completely negligent. See? I have reasons."

Katara did not speak for several minutes. Her brain was working in overtime, trying to process everything he had just told her and more. It seemed like hours before she said: "Zuko… I want to hate you so much right now." When he tried to interrupt her, she hushed him with a finger to his lips. "But no matter how much I try, I can't. As much as I want to say that you're an idiot and you should've never come down here, I think that if I were in your place, I would've done the same." She took a deep breath. "So, Zuko, there's something I need to tell you."

And without waiting for a response, Katara reached up, wrapped her arms around Zuko's neck, and kissed him. Looking at him eye to eye, she whispered: "No matter how stupid you may be… I think I might be in love with you too."

_Fin._

**A/N: So. A week of on-and-off work, various raging at characters for not doing what I wanted, one computer bork and a mostly-finished auto-saved document later, we have Zutara Week Day 1: Mask! The plot really was supposed to be different and it probably would've been shorter (but still would've been my longest one-shot ever) – Katara was supposed to take his mask off **_**first**_**, and then, after realizing who he was, kiss him. But obviously Zuko and Katara wanted a more complicated relationship. xP**


	2. Day 2  History

**Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender**

**Title: Zutara Week, Day 2: History**

**Pairings/Ships: Zutara**

It was 100 ASC. She had just turned 15; he was a mere 16. They shared a hug as a goodbye, both wondering whether they would ever see each other again.

It was 105 ASC. She was now 20, he 22. Her engagement was announced the day after the annulment of his. He visited to congratulate them, and she consoled him for his loss. He assured her it was all his choice.

It was 107 ASC. She was 22, he 24. She, having been married the year before, had just given birth to a baby girl. He, still unmarried and ruling the Fire Nation on his own, came to visit again.

It was 108 ASC. She was 23, he 25. Prior to the birth of her second child, she ended her marriage, stating a loss of interest on her part. She moved to the Fire Nation, as her only family at home was her father. He visited her often.

It was 109 ASC. She was 24, he 26. She was a single mother of two living in a tiny house. He, the Fire Lord with plenty of money and space to share, invited her to live in the palace. There she moved, her children given the best education and lifestyle they could have.

It was 112 ASC. She was 27, he 29. He was being pressured to choose a bride and approached her. She rejected the offer, telling him it would not look right for him to marry a divorced woman.

It was 114 ASC. She was 29, he 31. He had still not chosen a bride, and continued to pursue her. Finally she agreed, but regarded their following marriage as merely political and nothing more.

It was 117 ASC. She was 32, he 33. Tired of a platonic relationship, he approached her and told her his true feelings. He truly cared for her and only wished for her to feel the same. Taken aback, she apologized and said that she could not, for her feelings laid with no one and she could not force them upon him. He said he understood, but in all reality did not.

It was 118 ASC. She was 33, he 35. She was woken in the middle of the night from a nightmare. In it, she was being taken away from him and left with nothing but herself and her children. She was devastated. And with that she realized something: maybe she _did_ care for him after all.

It was 121 ASC. She was 36, he 38. Having finally discovered her feelings, she bore him three children in just as many years. Although a bit late in his life than many others, he had finally received his wish to become a true husband and father.

It was 175 ASC. She was 90, he 92. They died on the same day, within an hour of each other, and held hands through the ordeal. They were buried in the same plot that their children would be, along with all of the past Fire Lords and their family. Their headstones read:

_Fire Lord Zuko and Fire Lady Katara_

_Reign from 100 ASC – 175 ASC_

_Loving husband and wife, father and mother_

_May their legacy live on forever_

**A/N: A bit shorter than the last one, no? This was supposed to be a drawing, but since I put it off till forever (also woke up around noon) I couldn't do it. And writing it so much easier. No, I'm not going to name their kids because I'm lazy. Also: the "he" is always Zuko and the "she" is always Katara. So in 108, it was Zuko who would visit her often, not Hakoda. Just wanted to make that clear.**

…**oh yeah, and ASC stands for After Sozin's Comet.**


End file.
